It doesn’t matter that sex-selection abortions are rare in the United States. They do happen. And it doesn’t matter how slimy and slippery slopey the anti-choicers tactics are. (Aren’t you used to that yet? They’re good!) What’s relevant is that it’s entirely irrelevant why a woman wants an abortion.

Also, let’s just remember that we are talking about fetuses. No matter how many ultrasound pics get posted to Facebook, these are fetuses with female genitals or male genitals — not little girls and little boys.

If pro-choicers object to aborting because of the sex of the fetus, aren’t we then saying that abortion is “murdering” girls?

Aren’t we basically arguing that a fetus is not a blank slate but a future possibility? That is not the case to make if your goal is to protect abortion rights.

Gulp for a second if you must, then get over it.

~ Slate editor Allison Benedikt , May 31

Yesterday The New York Times posted the article, “Abortion qualms on the morning-after pill may be unfounded.”

Before quoting the NYT piece let me make clear it makes no such claim about hormonal birth control pills, only Plan B, advertised to be taken up to three days after unprotected sex, and Ella, advertised to be taken up to five days after unprotected sex.

In a nutshell:

Based on the belief that a fertilized egg is a person, some religious groups and conservative politicians say disrupting a fertilized egg’s ability to attach to the uterus is abortion….

But an examination by The New York Times has found that the federally approved labels and medical Web sites do not reflect what the science shows. Studies have not established that emergency contraceptive pills prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb, leading scientists say. Rather, the pills delay ovulation, the release of eggs from ovaries that occurs before eggs are fertilized, and some pills also thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble swimming.

It turns out that the politically charged debate over morning-after pills and abortion, a divisive issue in this election year, is probably rooted in outdated or incorrect scientific guesses about how the pills work. Because they block creation of fertilized eggs, they would not meet abortion opponents’ definition of abortion-inducing drugs.

A few pro-life medical and science experts whom I respect have expressed this same opinion to me in the past. Others believe the opposite from their research.

Most agree we can never know exactly how each ingestion of the morning-after pill works. How it stops pregnancy depends on when in a woman’s cycle she takes the pill in conjunction with when she had sex. But most agree one way it may work is by causing 5-9 day old embryo to flush out of the uterus, because the uterus has been made impermeable to embedding. Bottom line, quoting the NYT:

“I would be relieved if it doesn’t have this effect,” said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “So far what I see is an unresolved debate and some studies on both sides,” he said, adding that because of difficulties in ethically testing the drugs on women, “it’s not only unresolved, but it may be unresolvable.”

Nevertheless, pro-abortion groups have lit up with this news. They’re going wild on Twitter. We have entered into a new debate. Rest assured the other side will forever hearken back to this NYT piece as the definitive statement that morning-after pills don’t cause abortions.

MAP, not BC

And they will toss in birth control pills, too, although as I wrote at the beginning of this article, the NYT was clear to say they are not part of this conversation:

 Experts say implantation was likely placed on the label partly because daily birth control pills, some of which contain Plan B’s active ingredient, appear to alter the endometrium, the lining of the uterus into which fertilized eggs implant. Altering the endometrium has not been proven to interfere with implantation. But in any case, scientists say that unlike the accumulating doses of daily birth control pills, the one-shot dose in morning-after pills does not have time to affect the uterine lining.

NYT acknowledges huge morning-after pill failure rate

As an aside, there was another huge piece of information hidden in the NYT piece:

The pregnancy prevention rates are probably lower than scientists and pill makers originally thought, he said – in some studies as low as 52 percent for Plan B and 62 percent for Ella.

Wow. Plan B doesn’t work half the time, and Ella doesn’t work one-third of the time.

Pro-life bottom line

A few quick thoughts…

• For the NYT to say “studies have not established” MAPs can cause abortions is pretty weak, and it is coming from the NYT. We must always err on the side of life, continuing to accept the current scientific body of understanding about MAPs until it is definitely proven otherwise, if that can ever happen.

• Hormonal birth control pills and the megadose morning-after pill Plan B remain dangerous to women and to the environment.  Only this week several UK news outlets reported on the “new water pollution scare” – artificial estrogen in the water system that is feminizing male fish and causing “collapses in the fish populations.” The Guardian called birth control ingredients “toxic.” Where are the feminists seeking to protect women from the harmful effects of these steroids.

• As Kathleen Gilbert of LifeSiteNews.com noted in in email, it is interesting that the same people who have called pro-lifers crazy for saying morning-after pills cause abortions – just by reading package labeling – are now gleeful by the prospect this labeling may be removed. Why? Furthermore, the labeling remains intact on birth control pill packaging.

• From a pro-life perspective, almost all of the reasons mothers give for elective abortions are the same reasons they give to contracept. The contraception mentality is the root of the abortion mentality. Contraception literally means, “anti-conception.” Nowhere in the Bible are children considered any other than gifts and blessings from God. Many Christians have abandoned this understanding of children, buying into pop culture myths about overpopulation and self-fulfillment that can’t be had without delaying or foregoing children.

by LauraLoo

It has been 68 years since that deadly day called D-Day on the shores of France.

Reflections first from the late President Ronald Reagan on the 40th anniversary of D-Day: 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgDZdFQY3iM[/youtube]

And reflections dating back to 1944 - rare colorized footage of the English, French and American – military allies unified in their quest to defeat German military and political leader Adolf Hitler.

God bless our military - past, present and future!

Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.

This morning Live Action released undercover video showing two National Abortion Federation clinics in Arizona agreeing to break state law and commit illegal sex-selection abortions.

Today’s video is the third release of Live Action’s “Gendercide” investigation, showing how America’s abortion industry facilitates sex-selection abortions. The first two videos focused on Planned Parenthoods in Texas and New York, states where sex selective abortions are legal.

But Arizona is one of four states where sex-selective abortions are illegal. In March 2011 Governor Jan Brewer signed a statute into law making it a Class 3 Felony to knowingly commit, solicit, coerce, or accept funds for an abortion based on gender or race.

In today’s release Live Action expands its investigation to National Abortion Federation clinics. NAF is an association of independent abortionists and abortion doctors across the U.S., i.e., no Planned Parenthoods.

The video shows employees at  Camelback Family Planning in Phoenx and the Tucson Women’s Center in Tucscon either authorizing the investigator to lie on her paperwork about her intentions to abort a girl, or telling her to conceal the motivation she has just revealed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q6_Nx3f4EU[/youtube]

At the Camelback clinic a counselor named Barb advises, “Don’t tell us that, because we don’t want to know.” Referring to the clinic’s abortion doctor, Gabrielle Goodrick, Barb says, “You can tell her. She’s gonna tell you the same thing. Just don’t let it be known! She’s really good about that. You’ll like that about her.”

At the Tucson clinic surgical assistant Francisco tells the woman, “We could lose our license,” but agrees to cover up her sex-selective abortion. “I’ll just forget about it,” he says, “But just be sure not to mention it” to the abortion doctor, and advises her not to affirm on the state-mandated paperwork that her reason for aborting is sex-selection.

Both abortion workers clearly showed intent to violate Arizona’s sex-selection abortion law. Further, Barb indicates she has heard this rationale for abortion before.

Live Action has already provided Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and local law enforcement with full footage of these two investigations and calls for aggressive prosecution.

On May 31 an effort to pass a federal ban on sex-selective abortions failed in the U.S. House. A recent poll by the Lozier Institute found 77% of Americans and 80% of women support a ban on abortions based on gender. Sign the petition to ban abortions based on gender at ProtectOurGirls.com.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PlpCeCyN8[/youtube]

So, I wonder if the gay community can count on the Democrat Party that they’re so beholden to, to protect defenseless babies if it can be discovered that they’re homosexual in utero.

Rush Limbaugh has already made this point that the gay community will become very pro-life then. And I myself reckon they would find an unlikely allegiance with the Republican Party.

That is, if the RINOs don’t take over.

~ Pro-life advocate Alfonzo Rachel, via PJTV’s Zo Nation, June 5

Knowing Mitt Romney would secure the Republican nomination for president with a win in the Texas primary on May 29, Planned Parenthood planned the roll-out of its anti-Romney ad campaign for May 30.

Here is how ad campaigns like this are supposed to work:

1. A special interest group makes a video
2. The group makes a small ad buy
3. The group makes a big PR splash
4. The group hopes it will get lots of earned (free) media and that its video will go viral

Planned Parenthood’s #2 should read:

2. The group makes a small ad buy and lies and says it made a big ad buy

More on that later.

The problem for Planned Parenthood was it knew Live Action’s video exposé on sex selective abortions was coming but didn’t know when.

Any day would have been a bad day for Live Action to release its first video, but May 29 was the worst day possible.

PR clash

Oh, to have been a pepto-pink fly on the wall in Planned Parenthood’s corporate headquarters on May 29, when its think tank had a huge decision to make.

Should they proceed with their ad launch the next day, or wait? They knew Live Action’s video would suck oxygen from their video as well as from earned media. Instead of discussing Romney, Cecile Richards and surrogates would get stuck talking about the repulsive topic of sex selection abortions.

Obviously, Planned Parenthood decided to go. It’s possible wheels were already too far in motion to stop. It’s also possible Planned Parenthood thought it might be able to turn the tables and take oxygen away from Live Action.

At any rate, I expect that’s why Cecile Richards’ voice was hoarse on May 30.

Dick Morris speculated on Fox News that Live Action purposefully planned its video release for the day preceding Planned Parenthood’s campaign launch, adding that he thought Planned Parenthood’s support of Obama would actually be unhelpful…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6c2c-vWRYI[/youtube]

What Morris said:

The latest Gallup poll shows for the first time that more people are pro-life than pro-choice, by a good margin. It was 50 pro-life. 41 pro-choice, right? And that’s significant. So the ad starts off with the 41, and that’s not so bad, you know, you may find some extra votes in there, but you have to consider it in the context of the other shoe that dropped yesterday [Live Action’s video]….

I think that the release will be far more important than the ad. The ad isn’t going to run in a lot of states. They’re putting only, I think, about a million behind it, they say, and it’s in one or two states. But the fact that Planned Parenthood was literally advising someone on an abort – to get an abortion for sex change or for sex selection… is just incredible. It’s outrageous. Over 80% of the American people would oppose that. It’s just the kind of thing that makes the pro-choicers uneasy and the pro-lifers outraged. And for Planned Parenthood to inject itself into the race with this out there is a very unfortunate coincidence for Obama.

Of course, it’s not coincidence, I’ll bet that the group that released that video waited until Planned Parenthood did its thing and then dropped the bomb. But it is a bomb.

I can tell you Live Action had no idea. The perfect timing of its release is what we call a “Godincidence.”

It has now been a week since Live Action released its video. And as NewsBusters reports, to date not one of the big three television networks has aired any mention of it, which is particularly glaring in light of the attention they gave to the Planned Parenthood/Komen flak.

Still, the Live Action investigation got coverage on Fox and CNN and in print journalism around the globe.

Meanwhile, Obama’s favorability rating among women continues to plummet.

And as to which videos are going viral? The numbers tell the story. While Live Action’s first investigative video has received almost 290,000 views, and its second over 40,000, Planned Parenthood’s anti-Romney had has only been viewed 27,000 times, and worse, Planned Parenthood’s endorsement of Romney has received a paltry 4,691 views. Click to enlarge…

Little pink lies

As to the amount of money Planned Parenthood will spend on its anti-Romney campaign, the New York Times reported it will be $1.4 million,, “one of its biggest-ever political advertising campaigns,” adding the amount “represents a threefold increase over the group’s total spending during the 2008 campaign.”

Really? In 2008, Planned Parenthood promised to spend $10 million on the presidential race. So if my math is correct, Planned Parenthood was admitting in the NYT piece it spent less than $500,000.

(Another example of Planned Parenthood’s little pink lies: In 2002 Illinois Planned Parenthood promised to spend $1 million on the governor’s race in support of Rod Blagojevich but actually spent only $67,500.)

At any rate, $1.4 million is really not that much, to wit: The ad is running in only three markets: West Palm Beach, Florida, Des Moines, Iowa, and the Washington, D.C. area, for a total of three weeks.

[Top photo via Jezebel]

by Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Abby Johnson announces an upcoming webcast by former abortion clinic workers exposing the truth about the industry. Register for the June 11 “Exposing the Lie” webcast here.
• Big Blue Wave points to Japan, where abortion is not a political issue, as a counter-argument to the feminist claim that women only suffer after abortion due to societal stigma.

• At Abolitionist Society of Oklahoma, Cindy Adams shares her journey from pro-choice, post-abortive woman to pro-life, forgiven daughter of God.
• At Ethika Politika, Jacqueline Harvey takes issue with Live Action’s recent sting regarding gendercide:
  

  This campaign focuses on discrimination, that it is wrong to kill a girl simply because she is a girl. The crux of the campaign is not that it is wrong to kill an unborn child because she is a human being, but because sexism condemned her to death.

  Herein lies the problem: If we say that gender is an unacceptable reason to abort a child, what then are acceptable reasons? In spite of the sophistication of the campaign, we have once again side-stepped our principles, the summit of the matter, and that is not without consequences.

• At Live Action, David Schmidt lists the four distortions he observed in the pro-choice media’s response to the Planned Parenthood gendercide sting videos.
• The FRC Blog shares a new public policy publication on RU-486, noting the fact that medical abortion has four times as many adverse events as surgical abortion.
• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition notes Germany’s recent decision to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.
• Abstinence Clearinghouse links to an article which discusses shifts in cultural attitudes toward narcissism (and away from marriage and self-sacrifice) and how these are reflected in our literature.

[Graphic by Abolitionist Society]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• A girl from Arizona with hypotonia (aka Floppy Baby Syndrome) is walking after receiving a transplant of her own cord blood stem cells and physical therapy.
• In other cord blood stem cell news, a Florida newspaper has a long story on a toddler who is part of an FDA-approved clinical trial to see if children’s own cord blood stem cells can help them with sensorineural hearing loss.
• In a letter to the Washington Post, Planned Parenthood’s director of global advocacy Chloe Cooney claims, “Planned Parenthood opposes sex-selection abortion.” Huh? Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards claims the same thing in a press release.

  What’s going on here? Planned Parenthood is actually stating they oppose a type of abortion. Isn’t that a first? Shouldn’t someone ask them why they’re now supposedly suddenly opposed to a woman freely exercising her right to abortion based on the child’s sex? Don’t they trust women to make the best decision for themselves and their families?

• At Slate, Rachael Larimore tries to reason with pro-choicers opposed to banning sex-selective abortions:
  

  At the same time, too many in the pro-choice movement refuse to believe that anyone who’s pro-life actually cares about the unborn. They can’t allow themselves to believe anything but that we hate women and are afraid of sex, because if they acknowledge that our concern is for the unborn, they might have to challenge their own beliefs.

  And so we can’t even find agreement on an issue that should bring us together. I find the pro-choice critiques of PRENDA to be either tired and lazy or strangely hypocritical. As to the idea that sex-selective abortion isn’t a big deal because it doesn’t happen that often, well… women who work at Catholic hospitals only make up a tiny percentage of the overall workforce, so I guess all that hubbub about whether they should have employer-provided birth control isn’t that big of a deal.

• Jordan Sekulow and Matthew Clark write about pro-choice hypocrisy on sex-selection abortions:
  

  Writing at the XX Factor blog at Slate, pro-choice advocate Allison Benedikt demonstrated the convoluted logic of those on the pro-choice side who express discomfort with sex-selective abortion:

  If pro-choicers object to aborting because of the sex of the fetus, aren’t we then saying that abortion is “murdering” girls? Aren’t we basically arguing that a fetus is not a blank slate but a future possibility? That is not the case to make if your goal is to protect abortion rights.

  Benedikt is exactly right. If “these are fetuses with female genitals or male genitals — not little girls and little boys,” why would the pro-choice community condemn sex-selection abortion at all?